Your Eyelids Are Growing Heavy (18 page)

But Megan just smiled and said, “All right, let's make some plans. What about your Thursday night class?”

“That was last term. I don't have a class on Thursday nights now.”

“Okay, good. Does Algren have a nurse, a receptionist?”

“No, he's there by himself. The office suite is fairly simple—a waiting room, a consulting room, and a unisex toilet. Here, I've made a drawing of the floor plan.” He fished a paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.

Megan took the paper with a look of wonder. “Gus, maybe you should open a detective agency.”

He made a face. “And spend the rest of my life tracking down ghouls like Harrison J. Algren? No, thank you.”

“Records. What kind of records does he keep?”

“He wrote your name in his appointment book—we'll have to take that. The whole book, I think, not just the page with your name on it.”

“I am his last appointment tomorrow?”

“You were when he wrote your name in. I suppose he could still schedule someone after you, but I don't think it's likely. He made it clear he was doing you a big favor by staying that late. Something else. He may have made out a card or a folder for you. We'll have to check the files.”

“A tape recorder—we'd better look for a tape recorder. He might have taped your interview. Should one of us stand lookout while the other searches?”

“No, we both search,” Gus decided. “Faster that way. We don't want to stay in there any longer than we have to. Ah, fingerprints. We'd better wear gloves.”

“In July?”

“Mm. Surgical gloves, then?”

“A bit noticeable, don't you think?”

Gus's door buzzer sounded.

Megan and Gus both jumped:
Caught while conspiring to commit murder
. Then they both felt foolish.

“Can you tell who it is?” Megan whispered.

“I can't see the front entrance from my window. But maybe there's a car in the street.” Gus went into the bedroom and leaned over his desk to peek through the closed curtain. What he saw was the car he'd ridden to Three Rivers Stadium in. Damn. He hurried back to the living room. “It's Snooks. Help me turn out the lights.”

They turned out the three lamps and sat next to each other on the sofa to wait. “Why is she taking so long?” Megan said, low.

“Probably trying your buzzer as well as mine. What's she doing here anyway? Do you think she suspects?”

“I don't see how she could. As long as we're careful never to mention Algren's name to her, she can't do anything more than guess.”

They waited.

“Was that a car starting?” Gus whispered. “No, can't be hers—too far away.”

“What
is
she doing?” Megan said irritably.

“She might be walking around the building. Trying to see in my windows.”

Megan and Gus sat huddled together in the dark, waiting for their conscience to go away.

Dr. Henrietta Snooks was deeply disturbed. She was haunted by the fear that two people she'd grown fond of were in imminent danger of turning themselves into killers.

They'd both been out the night before. She'd even tramped around the building looking for lights in Gus's place, feeling a perfect fool. She'd gotten nothing out of that except a run in her hose.

She'd tried all day Wednesday to call them. Gus either wasn't home or just wasn't answering his phone. And she'd been unable to get past the switchboard operator at Glickman Pharmaceuticals. Snooks knew that Megan had a direct line; the fact that she'd arranged for her calls to go through the switchboard meant she wanted them screened. That could be a simple precaution to keep the full-fathom-five man from calling her at work. But Snooks had left messages for Megan to get in touch with her. The calls had not been returned.

Snooks couldn't see Gus Bilinski as a partner in a murder. He just didn't have the killer instinct. Megan had it—oh boy, did she have it. That young woman had a pronounced streak of ruthlessness that showed up quite clearly under hypnosis.

Up to now Megan's strong, healthy ego had kept her aggressive impulses under control, had directed them into constructive channels that had helped her to succeed in the business world. But now Megan was faced with an extraordinary problem, and her usual strategies for handling conflict weren't working. So she was turning to a strategy she'd never used before. No question: Megan Phillips was quite capable of killing.

Snooks felt that if she could just get to Megan, if she could talk to her—she might be able to help her strengthen her controls. Megan wouldn't want to kill if she could see another way out of her dilemma. Perhaps together they could find a way.

She looked at her watch: five minutes until her next patient. Snooks reached for the phone. Nothing to do but keep trying.

Gus was having trouble talking. He kept tripping over his tongue, he couldn't seem to finish his sentences, he'd say one thing when he meant something quite different. The students didn't notice. They were half asleep anyway.

Tonight
, he thought. After tonight Megan would be free. After tonight nobody would have to worry about Glickman drugs being sold to schoolchildren. After tonight he'd know a little better the kind of person he was.

“I'd like you to pay special attention to Coleridge's use of the stallad banza,” he told the class. He didn't bother correcting the spoonerism, since he was the only one who'd noticed it.

Gus was terrified. He'd started shaking even before he got out of bed that morning and he didn't have his tremors under control even yet. He'd met Polly for coffee earlier and right away she'd noticed something was wrong. Gus had mumbled some excuse and Polly hadn't pressed him, bless her.

Gus was obsessed with the fear that he'd flake out when the testing moment came. What if he did let Megan down when she needed help the most? Was he the sort of person who could give help only when the giving was easy?

“It's not so much the subject matter as the poet's attitude toward his subject matter that counts, especially when you're trying to cram everything inside a rigid rhyme scheme and metric pattern but of course you can always vary the meter a little as long as you keep the same number of feet in each line and you go on into things like
terza rima
and.” Gus wondered what on earth he'd been trying to say. Someone in the last row was yawning, not even bothering to cover his mouth.

It was a simple choice between Megan Phillips and Harrison J. Algren. One of those two people was going to destroy the other. The only question was which would get which. And that made it no question at all. Algren
has
to die, Gus thought. Hold on to that, keep telling yourself:
Algren has to die
. What had Algren done to Megan over that weekend to give him such a lock on her mind? What kind of drugs had he forced her to take, what kind of conditioning had he subjected her to? What kind of monster could do such a disgusting thing to a fellow human being?

“The line of descent is quite clear, but it's not until we get to Keats that we realize Algren has to die.” Gus stopped, horrified.

He needn't have worried. Nobody was listening.

Snooks
, thought Megan.

Tonight Megan was going to take a loaded gun, point it at a man she didn't know, and pull the trigger. Then tomorrow Snooks would read in the paper that an Oakland hypnotherapist had been murdered, and it would take her about one tenth of one second to figure out whodunit. What would she do?

She might go to the police. With no evidence, but with her own statement that a certain Megan Phillips had, in her presence, declared her intention to kill a then unnamed hypnotist. Snooks had her position at Pittsburgh Psychiatric Clinic to give her words weight; the police would listen. And investigate. And maybe turn up a link between Megan and Harrison J. Algren.

What kind of link? Some unknown piece of evidence she might leave in Algren's office—a thread from her clothing, a hair. Or was it only television cops that noticed that kind of detail? Megan had a hunch it wasn't; she certainly couldn't count on the Pittsburgh police's conveniently overlooking anything of the sort. She'd have to be very, very careful tonight.

Or what if the police uncovered the connection between Algren and whoever hired him to hypnotize Megan? If that person (those persons?) had anything at all to do with drugs, the link with Megan might be revealed that way. Depended on how much that person or those persons talked. It struck Megan there was an awfully large number of things that could happen that she'd have no control over.

But without Snooks to fill in the blank places, the police wouldn't know where to look. They couldn't pick up one of her black hairs and know to rush out to Howe Street with a warrant in their hands. Only Snooks could tell the police about the Megan connection. Always it came back to Snooks.

But maybe Snooks wouldn't go to the police. That was a pretty big maybe, too big for Megan to gamble her freedom on. It was possible that she had fooled Snooks, had made her think she was resigned to whatever hypnotic fate awaited her. Megan called the switchboard operator and asked for messages. A Dr. Henrietta Snooks had called four times. Nope. She hadn't fooled her.

Snooks had to be prevented from going to the police, she had to be convinced. But how? Megan's unsupported assertion wouldn't do the trick—especially if a dead hypnotist just happened to turn up tomorrow morning. What would convince Snooks? What would make her think Megan wouldn't go through with it?

The belief that Megan had no
reason
to go through with it. Megan chewed on that one awhile. Yes. That was it. Snooks had to be convinced that the hypnotist no longer had a hold on her.

How would it go? Say she told Snooks she got another one of those reinforcing phone calls, while Gus listened in on the extension. Say the hypnotist started the routine, maybe spoke one line of the poetry—and then was interrupted. By the sound of a gun being fired. Oh, good heavens no! When Harrison J. Algren was going to turn up with a bullet in him? Snooks would see through that in a minute.

All right, try it again. The hypnotist calls, recites the first line of poetry, stops. There are sounds of a struggle. Ugh, no—too melodramatic. A heart attack—he has a heart attack! Gus is on the extension and he's listening to the caller gasping and wheezing and maybe saying the word “heart.”

What would Gus Bilinski do in a situation like that? He'd dial 911 and scream for an ambulance. No—he couldn't do that unless he knew where to send it. And Gus was supposed not to know who the hypnotist was. So
that's
what he'd do: he'd try to get the hypnotist to tell him his name, where he was. But the gasping, wheezing caller dies without saying another word. Then Gus goes into the living room and finds Megan standing like a statue, the receiver glued to her ear. He speaks the second line of poetry to complete the ritual; she hangs up; she tells Gus, “Wrong number.” Megan wondered how Gus would appreciate the starring role she was writing for him. Then together they would go to Snooks and tell her they were fairly certain Megan's hypnotist had just died of a heart attack. So the murdered hypnotherapist in Oakland would be … a murdered hypnotherapist in Oakland.

It just might work. Snooks would be skeptical, of course; it would all depend on how convincing a story they told. Details. Go over it again, get the details right.

The phone interrupted her. Mr. Ziegler would like to see Ms Phillips, please.

And Ms Phillips would like to see Mr. Ziegler. She hurried to his office, wondering if he had any news.

In a way. “I suppose you know Bill McKay from our Joliet branch was here for an interview,” Mr. Ziegler started out. “You might not know he got into Pittsburgh Monday night, had his interview the next morning, and was on a plane back to Joliet late Tuesday afternoon. That makes it look good for you. If he was a serious candidate for the position, the board would have kept him here longer.”

Megan felt her spirits lift—that did indeed make it look good for her!

“Since this vice-presidency has always been held before by someone with a marketing background,” Mr. Ziegler went on, “the board probably feels it ought at least to consider other possible candidates. McKay was the logical one to call in, because he's been with Glickman for so long. But I think Bill McKay functions best right where he is, in a branch manager's office. I feel certain the board thinks so too.” He gave Megan his quick mechanical smile. “I'm telling you all this because I was afraid you might be getting discouraged.”

“Your fears were justified,” Megan told him wryly. She knew he had another reason for telling her. He was increasing her in-debtedness to him. Making sure of her personal loyalty in the future.
I'm on your side, see? I'm doing everything I can for you
. “The board has kept me waiting a long time,” she said.

“They might keep you waiting even longer,” he cautioned. “There'll probably be a few more like Bill McKay. But I think it's safe to say that at this point, at least, no serious rival for the position has appeared on the scene.”

Megan left his office feeling better than she'd felt all week. Ziegler was smart—he knew just when a little pep talk would help most. Would help him, too. Since Megan was Ziegler's declared choice for the job, it wouldn't do to have her drooping around the place.

All she had to do was get through tonight's ghastly business without mishap and handle Snooks right. Then she could concentrate all her energies on nailing down the vice-presidency.

CHAPTER 12

Megan's appointment with Algren was for seven o'clock. The Kinderling Professional Building in Oakland was only a ten-minute drive from the Howe Street apartment in Shadyside, but Megan and Gus left at six. Worried about being late to their first murder.